Daniel Turriani collection contemporary art

Reading Daniel Turriani’s biography – Italian collector and entrepreneur, whose name often appears in the world top art rankings and headlines – the interest in art and everything related to it appears to be a matter of DNA. His successful profile seems to be a mixture between a family of art lovers and entrepreneurs surrounded by highly respected artists. One might think of one of these people who spend their lives immersed day and night in business, who live in an exclusive world and are unreachable.

Well, it turns out that things may not be as they appear to be. I have been following his Instagram profile with great curiosity for a while and what struck me most is the very peculiar passion of Mr.Turriani, which in my eyes is his true big love: her name is Annabel and has a hashtag dedicated to her. She is his daughter: a sweet little girl, with a genuine look and with very delicate traits evoking a Renaissance painting by Raffaello. It goes straight to your heart thinking that a man of such standards spends time with his family, hand in hand with his daughter, strolling on the beach and playing with her. He lives in both Europe and China with an impressive flexibility.

And with the same flexibility, between a commitment and the other – and I imagine him having many – Mr.Turriani dedicated some of his time also to me, kindly replying to my requests and without long waiting periods. Someone said “you can’t buy class” but, in the case of Mr.Turriani, we can say that courtesy is part of his art, a quality which is rare to find.

Question: As an entrepreneur and collector, how did you personally live the effects of this global emergency, that is also a cultural, intellectual, and social shock?

Answer: I think as human beings after millions of years of evolution we know instinctively how to adapt to any situation. Certainly, what we are experiencing now with this pandemic is surreal and many people are being affected personally and financially. In my opinion the Art market is still holding strong, I keep seeing lots of activity in the market, luckily my business was not affected at all. I firmly believe that from any negative situation we can create something positive if we use our creativity. I have been in China since beginning of January, I went through two and a half months of very strict lockdown, many of my personal and business plans have been cancelled. But I took the lockdown as an opportunity to meditate and reflect about many aspects of my life and my work. I was interviewed by a well-known Italian journalist. That interview put me in touch with thousands of Italian people who were struggling during the peak of the pandemic in Italy and they were all writing to me through Instagram asking for tips and advice. I tried to help as many people as possible and that also gave me the idea to write a book on which I’m working right now. I also spent the time to write down other business ideas, to explore the web, searching for young, talented artists to add to my art collection and, of course, I was busy with several good deals on the secondary market on artists such as Nara, Condo, Kusama. I never had a dull moment during the lockdown. No matter what life throws at us we should adapt, think, and use our creativity to turn a bad experience into something positive.

Q: The contemporary art market is moving from a “physical” dimension to increasingly online managed platforms. Isn’t there a risk of losing authentic contact with the work of art itself?

A: I don’t think so, platforms as Instagram, for example, give you the chance to communicate directly with many artists. I often talk to them before buying their art from their representative galleries. I think it’s important to talk to an artist to better understand what is behind his art, with few clicks you can talk with galleries and artists around the world and receive HD images and detailed videos of their works. We are moving into a new digital generation, everything will change accordingly and we need to adapt and be prepared, there are huge opportunities out there.

Q: What do you think is the role and the power of social media like Instagram in the art market?

A: Social media like Instagram are playing a fundamental role in the art market. The platform is used by many international and renowned collectors, galleries and artists, so it creates a perfect environment to generate business opportunities for everybody. One aspect I think social media need to improve is to have zero tolerance against any form of racism, discrimination and hate speech.

Q: Social media such as Facebook, Instagram and others are increasingly popular between young people and offer a lot of artistic content. To what extent will these affect the way art collectors perceive the artwork and consequently the choices they make when buying a piece of art?

A: The danger with social media is to fall into the hype, for example to follow other well-known collectors to see what they are buying and trying to copy them hoping to pick the next big artist that will treble or more in value in the short-term. Unfortunately many new and young collectors think this way, which is wrong. Of course it’s always interesting to see what other collectors are buying but I would never be able to buy an artwork I don’t feel any type of connection with, I need to love what I buy, an artwork needs to make me happy and satisfied every time I’ll look at it. I think many new collectors are buying and hanging art in their houses that they don’t even like just because they think is cool or just to follow the hype, it’s ok if it works for them but certainly not for me.

We surely agree with him since social media have indeed become very relevant for both collectors and artist in order to allow these to be updated about art trends and current tastes.

Daniel Turriani collection contemporary art Daniel Turriani collection contemporary art

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